The present invention relates to a pest control device and a volatile substance holder for use in same. Particularly, the present invention relates to a pest control device of a non-heating type, which volatilizes into the air a pest control component, such as a pesticidal component or a pest repellent component, which are volatile at ordinary temperature, and a volatile substance holder for use in same.
A pest control device, which has been developed recently to replace a pest control device of a heating type, uses a fan to air a holder, such as paper, in which absorbed is a pest control agent whose active component is a pesticidal component or a pest repellent component that are volatile at ordinary temperature, thereby volatilizing the active component into the air so as to control the pest (Japanese Un-Examined Patent Publication, Tokukaihei, No. 7-236399: published on Sep. 12, 1995).
Moreover, Japanese Un-Examined Patent Publication, Tokukaihei, No. 5-68459 (published on Mar. 23, 1993) discloses a pest control device, which volatilizes an active component into the air by using driving means to rotate a holder itself, which has absorbed a pest control agent.
Those pest control devices need no heating means for volatilizing the pest control agent, unlike the pest control device of the heating type, thereby having low energy consumption. For this reason, a fan of the pest control devices can be driven by using a dry battery and the like, without using a commercial power supply. Therefore, the pest control devices have excellent compatibility, while the pest control devices are excellently safe, because the pest control devices themselves and their surroundings are prevented from being heated, thereby eliminating possibilities of burning and fire.
However, when the pest control agent is absorbed in the holder in this way, a user has no way to check how much an active component of the pest control agent remains, because the active component of the volatile pest control agent, which is volatilized from the holder, is invisible. Therefore, the user cannot determine when the holder runs out of the active component of the pest control agent and has no efficacy anymore (hereinafter, the loss of the efficacy due to the running out of the active component is referred to as an end of the efficacy). Thus, the user should refer to a serviceable time that is roughly estimated. However, depending on how frequently the holder is used, or how the user judges, the user may judge that the holder is finished even the holder can be still used efficaciously, or the user may decide to continue to use the holder even after the end of the efficacy has come.
Therefore, there is a need to develop means that surely determines reduction or an end point (the end of efficacy) of the active component of the pest control agent.
A well-known conventional methods of determination of the end point is, for example, a method in which the amount of the active component of the pest control agent is adjusted in accordance with a service life of a dry battery so that an end of the service life of the dry battery indicates an end of the active component absorbed in paper, thereby informing a user a time to exchange the paper.
However, the method in which the end of the efficacy is indicated by the end of the service life of the dry batter has such problems that the end of the efficacy and the end of the service life of the dry battery often do not synchronize with each other, because the active component of the pest control agent is not reduced always in a synchronizing manner with the usage of the dry battery. Further, the end of the service life of the dry battery also merely indicates in approximation how long the holder can be used, because there is no way to see the reduction of the active component of the pest control agent. Therefore, the user may be informed of the end of the efficacy by the end of the service life of the dry battery long after the active component has run out, and the holder has lost its efficacy.
To overcome the problems, suggested is a method in which the reduction or the end point of the active component of the pest control agent to be volatilized can be checked by looking at how much the active component is left. For example, Japanese Un-Examined Patent Publication, Tokukaihei, No. 8-147 (published on Jan. 9, 1996) discloses a method in which an pest control agent or a holder of it is colored, so that a time to exchange the holder is indicated by disappearance of the color.
However, while the method of in which a pest control agent or a holder of it is colored allows a user to see and judge the color, the color is not color of the active component itself, but the color of a pigment added. The color disappears with a lapse of time, for example, due to a chemical change, and a period of time for the color to disappear is merely adjusted to the period of time for the active component of the pest control agent to vanish. In other words, there is no physical interrelationship between the volatilization of the active component of the pest control agent and the change of the color of the pigment. Because of this, in the above method, it is impossible to have a good synchronization between the running out of the active component (the end of the efficacy) of the pest control agent and the disappearance of the color of the holder, while it is hard to adjust timing of the color disappearance subtly to attain the good synchronization, thus posing a problem that it is hard to control the end point.
Moreover, every user differently judges the end point from the color disappearance, while the color may change with speckles, or may not disappear completely, thereby making it difficult to judge the end point from the color change. For those reason, while some users may judge it is time to exchange the holder, the others may not judge so and continue to use the holder. To conclude, none of the methods can provide the users with means to surely determine the end point.
Conventionally, as a pest control device that can surely check the reduction and the end point (the end of the efficacy) of the active component of the pest control agent, well known is a pest control device that uses a bottle to contain a pest control solution, in which a pest control agent is dissolved in a solvent, so that the pest control solution is sucked up and heated in order to volatilize the solvent together with the active component. An example of such pest control device is a pest control device using a liquid mosquito-repellent. This type of the pest control device allows a user to check by sight how much the pest control solution is left.
However, the method of the above pest control device needs heating of the pest control solution. Thus, when a pest control agent, which is volatile at ordinary temperature, is dissolved in a solvent and contained in a bottle so that the pest control solution is sucked up from the bottle and volatilized by wind, for example, use of a solvent having low boiling point, such as ethanol, is impractical because the pest control solution evaporates to disappearance too fast and has a very short service time. On the contrary, use of a solvent having a high boiling point retards the volatilization of the pest control agent, thereby deteriorating efficiency of the pest control.
Furthermore, when the pest control agent is dissolved in the solvent so as to be contained in a bottle and used in the pest control device of the ordinary-temperature volatilization type, as above, the amount of the pest control agent to be volatilized is decreased as a result of the dissolution of the pest control agent in the solvent, thereby limiting efficacy of the pest control agent.
Therefore, there is no pest control device of the non-heating type which allows a user to easily control the end point and to surely check the reduction or the end point (end of efficacy) of the active component of the pest control agent, while using a pest control agent that can volatilize at ordinary temperature. Thus, it is demanded to provide a pest control device that allows a user to easily control the end point and to surely check the reduction or the end point (end of efficacy) of the active component of the pest control agent, while having en excellent pest control efficiency.
In view of the forgoing problems, the present invention is made to solve the problems. The present invention has objects to provide (a) a pest control device that allows a user to easily control the end point and to surely check the reduction or the end point (end of efficacy) of the active component of the pest control agent, while having an excellent pest control efficiency, and (b) a volatile substance holder for use in same.
The inventors of the present invention, as a result of an intensive study, have solved the forgoing problems. In the present invention, a pest control component, which volatilizes at ordinary temperature, is provided separately from the indicator to show how much the pest control component is left, while the indication how much the pest control component is left, is carried out by indicating how much a liquid, which is volatilized, is left in the indicator, to solve the forgoing problems.
Therefore, in order to attain the above objects, a pest control device of the present invention is provided with (1) a volatile substance holder, including a first and a second volatilization surfaces, the first volatilization surface holding a pest control component so that the pest control component can be volatilized into the air (hereinafter, referred to as the volatilization surface (I)), and the second volatilization surface being able to hold a liquid so that the liquid can be volatilized into the air (hereinafter, referred to as the volatilization surface (II)), where the pest control component and the liquid are volatile at ordinary temperature, and (2) an indicating section, including a liquid supplying system and a liquid containing container, the liquid supplying system supplying the liquid to the volatilization surface (II) of the volatile substance holder, and the liquid containing container containing the liquid to be supplied to the volatilization surface (II) via the liquid supplying system, wherein the indicating section indicates how much the pest control component to be volatilized from the volatilization surface (I) is left in the volatile substance holder by showing how much the liquid is left in the liquid containing container.
With the above arrangement, the volatile substance holder is provided with two volatilization surfaces so as to hold and volatilize the pest control component and the liquid on the separate volatilization surfaces. This optimizes efficiency of the pest control component because the pest control component is volatilized without retardation.
Moreover, with the above arrangement, the pest control agent and the indicator for indication are separately disposed, while the pest control agent and the indicator are correlated with each other. This makes it easy to control the end point (the end of efficacy) of the pest control component and to adjust volatilization of the pest control component in terms of quantity, thereby arbitrarily and easily setting the disappearance point of the liquid and the end point of the pest control component.
Moreover, the above arrangement allows the user to know by sight how much the pest control component is left (or reduced).
Therefore, the above arrangement provides a pest control device that attains a high efficiency in the controlling, and easily controls the end point of the pest control component, while allowing the user to surely check the reduction and the end point of the pest control component.
Furthermore, with the above arrangement, for example, another chemical may be added in the liquid, if necessary, so that the indicator can functions as an indicator and as a container of the chemical. This makes it possible that the pest control agent is used in association with a chemical, which may be highly volatile or low volatile compared with the pest control component, or may be a solid. Further, the above arrangement precisely synchronizes an end of efficacy of the pest control component and that of the chemical, with ease. This allows the pest control device to have various additional functions to combine with in accordance with needs of a user, such as a deodorizing function, an antibacterial function, and a fragrance function. Meanwhile, a service life of the pest control device until the end of efficacy of its active component can be arbitrarily set.
Moreover, a volatile substance holder of the present invention is provided with a first and a second volatilization surfaces, the first volatilization surface holding a pest control component so that the pest control component can be volatilized into the air (i.e., the volatilization surface (I)), and the second volatilization surface being able to hold a liquid so that the liquid can be volatilized into the air (i.e., the volatilization surface (II)), where the pest control component and the liquid are volatile at ordinary temperature.
With the above arrangement, the volatile substance holder is provided with two volatilization surfaces so as to hold and volatilize the pest control component and the liquid in the separate volatilization surfaces. This optimizes efficiency of the pest control component because the pest control component is volatilized without retardation, while including the pest control component not in the indicator that carries out the indication by using the liquid. Therefore, the above arrangement provides the volatile substance holder that is necessary for providing the pest control device that attains a high efficiency in the pest controlling, and easily controls the end point of the pest control component, while allowing the user to surely check the reduction and the end point of the pest control component.
It is preferable that the volatile substance holder holds a compound in a pyrethroid group in the volatilization surface (1), so that it is possible to provide the pest control device that is excellent in volatilization of the pest control component and in the pest control activity.
For a fuller understanding of the nature and advantages of the invention, reference should be made to the ensuing detailed description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.